His argument with Malika was short, pointless and entirely his fault. An argument he should never have won. He should never have won his fight with Hassan either. And it was the second that led to the first.
Having walked in silence, he and Malika had found Hassan waiting for them at a pavement table outside the café in Gueliz.
"You're late," said Hassan.
Moz shrugged behind his shades. "If you don't like it," he said, "I can always fuck off again."
Things went downhill from here.
Hassan needed Moz to do him a favour. Agreeing would go a long way to cancelling the obligations Moz owed to Hassan's uncle, Caid Hammou. The exact details of the favour would be revealed later.
"You don't really have a choice," Hassan said, when Moz said he'd think about it, meaning that he wouldn't...
"There's always a choice." Moz didn't actually believe this. In fact everything about life suggested that true choices were few and came rarely, but it was something to say and had the added advantage of upsetting Hassan.
"Not for you," Hassan said and gave Moz his stare, the one he'd learnt from watching his uncle. "Not with this."
"Why not?" asked Malika.
"Because Moz owes my uncle," said Hassan. "And Caid Hammou is calling in the obligation... Look," he added, his voice more gentle. Malika still had that effect on him, even now. "I'm just the messenger on this."
"That's all you've ever been," said Moz, scraping back his chair.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To shit." Moz used a term so crude that a man in a suit at the table next door put down his paper and turned round.
Moz stared him out and the suit looked away.
"Make sure you come back."
"Of course I'm coming back," said Moz. "You think I'd leave her here with you?" He jerked his chin at the girl. Malika was still sulking about his silence on the way from Riad al-Razor.
The loo was modern. A ceramic standing pad with raised bits for his feet and a metal hose for washing himself afterwards. A maker's name at the top gave a company address in Paris. The door locked with a little catch that switched a sign outside from occupé to libre.
It made Moz wonder how much the coffees were costing Hassan. And that made him wonder why Hassan had chosen him. Hassan would have his reasons, of course. He was one of those people who never gave anything unless he wanted something bigger himself, usually help removing goods from where they belonged to somewhere they didn't.
Not this time, Moz decided. Things had changed.
Moz hosed clean the fingers of his left hand and pulled up his jeans without bothering to dry his fingers first, even though there was a towel attached to a roller on the nearest wall. Then he reached into the back pocket of his Levi's to extract a small polythene envelope that read "Lloyds Bank," with a silhouette of a prancing horse. The envelope belonged to Jake and so did its contents.
"Cooking speed," Celia called it, which made no sense at all until Jake explained that speed was amphetamine sulphate and cooking, used like that, meant common or cheap.
Cracking an off-white crystal between his teeth, Moz swallowed and felt its bitterness bite at the back of his throat. It took a handful of seconds for cold lines to begin to draw themselves around the tiny basin and the edges of the small window to become hard and luminous.
Moz liked amphetamines.
Half a dozen crystals and already he knew that chemicals which made his brain work faster were more fun than those which slowed him down. Hard tuning, Jake called it. Maybe Jake was right, maybe Moz should become Jake's roadie when they left.
Except, of course, there was Malika.
At the table outside and still in a sulk but sliding her gaze in his direction whenever she thought he wouldn't notice.
"Okay," said Moz, shutting the loo door behind him. "Let's get this over with..."
The café had a long zinc bar with a single beer handle for Spéciale, half a dozen ashtrays, olives in little saucers and a wooden drum containing Corona cigars. And behind the zinc stood Georgiou, an old Greek in a white apron, who only stopped staring at Moz when the spiky-haired boy finally rejoined Hassan and Malika.
"Where have you been?"
"Me?" Moz glanced from Hassan to the next table, where the man in the suit had gone back to his paper. "I told you. I've been having a--"
"Never mind," Hassan said hurriedly and for a moment Moz could have sworn that the older boy looked almost embarrassed.
Tough.
"Si Muhamed." Moz clicked his fingers for a waiter. "A beer and my girlfriend will have..." He grinned at Malika. "What do you want?" he said.
Malika asked for the first thing that came into her head.
"With ice," Moz added. "And lemon."
"Marzaq..." There was a tightness to Hassan's voice. At first Moz thought this was because Georgiou's was actually owned by Caid Hammou and Hassan was worried that Moz's rudeness might get back to his uncle. And then Moz realized the real reason. He'd just called Malika his girlfriend.
Well, double tough.
"It's okay," Moz said. "We haven't forgotten you." He nodded to the waiter. "His Excellency will have an espresso."
It was Moz's belief that Hassan didn't even like espresso and would have been happier joining Malika in a Coke or ordering mint tea, but espresso was what those who'd been educated in Paris drank, even now two decades after the French had gone.
Of course, Caid Hammou's nephew had never been to Paris, which probably explained his rigid adherence to the rules of those who had.
After Moz's beer, the coffee and Malika's Coke arrived and the customer in the suit had stood stiffly and stalked off in the direction of Place du 16 Novembre, Hassan sat back and stared at Moz.
"Okay," he said. "Idries will pick you up from the dog woman's house late tomorrow afternoon. I need both of you to be there when Idries arrives..." Hassan talked about his absent cousin as if the rat-faced boy was some employee, and maybe he was.
"What exactly," Moz said, "are we stealing?"
"It's a delivery," said Hassan. "Idries will give you the details."
"No," said Moz. "You. Now."
"Idries," said Hassan, pushing back his chair. "Tomorrow."
Moz also stood up. "Then it's not going to happen," he said, "because I won't be there. Jake's taking the car to Mogador."
"That's what you want me to tell my uncle? That your nasrani's taking his bum boy to the beach?"
"Tell Caid Hammou whatever the fuck you want," Moz said, managing a sneer straight from the front of Mythik Amerika. "I'm out of here... Come on," he added to Malika. "Let's leave the little prick to his coffee."
A scrape of leather sole on concrete was all the warning Moz got of an anger so tight that Hassan tried to keep it silent.
Five... four... three... two...
Twisting sideways, Moz ducked. Only not quite fast enough because Hassan's left fist caught the side of his head and dropped Moz to one knee.
"Stop it!"
Malika's plea reached Moz through swimming darkness. And as Hassan positioned himself in front of Moz, the kneeling boy was faced with a flash of expensive clothes, smoky buttons on a cotton shirt. A belt of tan leather with dark spots in it. Black leather loafers that settled themselves and then moved again as Hassan prepared himself for a kick.
"No!" Malika shouted.
Indeed not.
Almost absent-mindedly, Moz reached forward and found the older boy's testicles, soft plums wrapped in silk. For a moment he was tempted to crush them but instead he made do with a cloth-creasing twist. And it was Moz who kicked, though first he had to force himself to his feet.